Failure to Thrive
by Just An Inkling
Summary: Everyone needs a little attention sometimes, and the best listening ears are sometimes the ones that don't really hear anything at all. Post-Before the Dawn, Dick/Wally bromance. Hiatus comfort fic. Rated for teenage boys' mouths.


**Wow, it's...been a while. Sorry about that. Senior year, folks. Lots of apathy for everyone. **

**Just a little oneshot post-Before the Dawn, Dick and Wally bromance action. Soothes my troubled soul. **

**Disclaimer: All bullshit, don't sue.**

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**Failure to Thrive**

The maternity ward was painted what Wally was sure were supposed to be soothing colors, soft seafoam greens and gentle sky blues and non-threatening lavenders. But the glass doors by the entrance, with their metal detectors and cameras catching the face of every visitor who came or went, that slid open with a hydraulic hiss as Wally approached still felt unwelcoming, like stepping into a bank vault or a prison.

"Hi," he said, pasting on a nervous smile for the nurse on duty at the desk. "I'm looking for a friend of mine, I guess he...sometimes volunteers here? I don't know, but I really need to talk to him and I was wondering if-"

The nurse smiled at him, warm and slightly pitying. "What's your friend's name?"

"I, um. He usually goes by Dick, but he's probably registered under Richard Grayson, if you have to register for that...kind of thing, I guess."

She chuckled under her breath at him and typed something into the computer tucked under the lip of the reception desk. "Yeah, you have to have a background check if you want to volunteer in a hospital. Especially in the maternity ward." She glanced at the screen and tapped a few more keys. "Can I get your name?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Wally West?"

She typed it into the computer and rolled out and away from the desk. "If you'll follow me," she said as she stood, walking briskly around the counter and down the hall. Wally took a few long, hurried strides to catch up to her.

"So, you and Dick are friends?"

"Well, we were," Wally grimaced. "We, ah... I was dumb, and he deserved exactly none of what I said to him."

"Ah. Well, I've known him for a while, and he's never exactly struck me as one to hold a grudge."

"Yeah," Wally muttered, hands tucked in his pocket and shoulders hunched miserably. He wasn't really the type to yell at someone the way he'd yelled at Dick, either, but this whole operation had turned them all into people they didn't like.

Artemis and Kaldur especially.

The nurse waved her ID badge against a security lock on the door to the nursery. Her hand poised on the door, she turned to Wally, her voice stern. "This room is monitored for the protection of all the babies in here. If I see the two of you fighting in here, I will call security. Got it?"

Wally nodded and prayed it wouldn't come to that. Not here, of all places.

"Good," she said, turning to the door with a satisfied nod. She pushed down on the handle and pulled it open, giving Wally an opening to slip into the room.

Of all the things Wally expected to find (and hearing from "Agent A" that Dick was volunteering at Gotham General's maternity ward that day had been shocking enough), the sight of his best friend cradling a tiny bundle of blue blanket against his chest wasn't on the list. "Dick, this young man says he's here to see you?"

Dick looked up, startled out of murmuring soothing nonsense at his sleepy charge, and his startlingly blue eyes widened as he caught Wally hanging back against the wall. "Um. Yeah, he's good, thanks Lisa."

The nurse smiled at the two boys and shut the door behind her. The un-uniformed Aerial Avenger, clad in a navy blue pullover sweater and dark blue jeans, turned away from Wally and kept murmuring to the infant in the crook of his arm. Vaguely, Wally registered M'gann's name, but was suddenly too shy to ask.

Dick started, very slowly, walking over to an empty cradle near the opposite wall. "Okay, buddy, down we go," he murmured, lowering his charge into the cradle. He rested his fingertips against the thin film of fuzz on top of the small head. "So. Your detective skills aren't a total loss, then."

Against his better judgement, Wally chuckled and took a step farther into the room. "I, ah. I called the house. You weren't there."

"Aaand you got Alfred. Awesome."

"Hey, I had to talk him into telling me where you were," Wally argued, his frayed nerves jumping straight to fight-mode. "Do you know how humiliating it is to tell your butler the things I said to you? My god, the sheer Britishness of his disapproval was terrifying."

Dick laughed, a soft thing somewhere between a bitter chuckle and his usual insane cackling. "Oh, don't I know it. He somehow talked me into giving him a play-by-play when I got home."

"Drugged you with hot chocolate?"

"Snickerdoodle truth serum," Dick corrected. He wandered over to another cradle and slid his arms under a small, pink bundle. "Hi, Mary," he cooed, tucking her close to his chest. "C'mere, baby girl, how about we try a little something to eat, huh? Think you can handle that today?"

Wally watched him move to grab a bottle out of a microwave on the counter near the back of the room. "Is she sick or something?"

"Or something," Dick muttered, lips twitching unhappily. "Have you ever heard of Failure to Thrive?"

Wally eased his way closer, pushing his luck as far as he could. "No, can't say I have."

Dick sighed and settled himself in a nearby armchair. "Iiiiit's a thing that happens in babies and younger kids, when they're given up for adoption or just plain neglected. If they don't get enough caregiver attention, even if their physical needs are pretty well-met, they just...give up. Stop eating. It's kind of this depressive state, and they just don't grow. Leads to lots of physical and mental issues later. Sometimes...sometimes they even die from it."

Wally sank into a chair against the walll and stared at the tiny bundle in the crook of Dick's arm. She looked maybe a couple weeks old at most. "How old is she?"

"Almost seven months. CPS transferred her to this adoption center from a smaller hospital outside the city. They didn't have the people available in their maternity ward for the number of waiting adoptions they had." Dick tried to coax the nipple of the bottle into Mary's mouth, tilting her head up a little bit with his elbow. "Come on, love, just a little bit. That's all I'm asking. You don't even have to drink the whole thing, or even half of it. Just a little bit, come on, please."

Wally watched, arms folded on his knees, as the tiny little girl sucked on the bottle for one second, two, three, four, before letting go again and turning away. Dick sighed and readjusted his hold, moving to try again. "So you...what? What do you even do here?"

Dick glanced up and cracked a little bit of a wry smile. "My official volunteer title is-don't laugh, you're not allowed to laugh-I'm officially a 'Baby Cuddler'."

Wally couldn't help the stray snicker that escaped him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Just... The infamous Nightwing, is a baby cuddler when he's off-duty."

"Shut up. Nightwing doesn't do this. Nightwing is incapable of this." Dick flipped the bottle upright again and set it on the side table next to him, apparently giving up on feeding for the moment. "Dick Grayson does this."

Wally sighed. "Right." He stared at his sneakers for a minute, worn and wet from running through the snow still covering the Great Lakes states. "Are...Dick Grayson and Wally West still friends?" When Dick failed to answer, Wally hurried to try and save a little bit of face with an explanation. "I mean, not that talking in third person is the thing now, but I really ripped into Nightwing back at the Hall, and I'm really sorry about that, none of any of that was really your fault, directly, but I guess I can handle it if Nightwing never forgives me, because I'm an idiot and a tactical liability, I acknowledge that, especially now that I'm all in semi-retirement here, and I guess, kind of, I'm really hoping you're not planning on cutting ties because I'm an asshole, because you've been my best friend since I first got into this stupid hero gig, when I was in way over my head and Flash didn't really know how to handle me and my parents were on the verge of sending me to military school-"

"Military school," Dick interrupted curiously. He'd hooked his knees over the arm of the chair and laid Mary on his thighs so she was nearly upright, and he was absently playing with her tiny balled fists. "They were going to send you to military school."

"Saint John's Military School for Boys, in Salina, Kansas," Wally affirmed, rolling his eyes. "My dad always said I was lacking in three things: Discipline, Grace, and Common Sense."

"Most days, I would not disagree," Dick laughed. "But that's what makes you Wally, and not Barry Allen."

Wally grimaced. "Yes, thank you for that timely reminder. I was almost starting to feel good about myself there."

"Sorry," Dick said. He kicked out with one foot and grazed Wally's upper arm with his toe. "Hey. I forgive you, dumbass. You had every right to yell at me. I need that."

Wally grinned half-heartedly. "I have a feeling you're going to get all of Batman's yelling for this whole undercover debacle all at once when this is over."

"No, Batman doesn't yell. He dissects you, tells you in excruciating, painful detail exactly what you did wrong, and then lets you stew on that for a few days before he allows you back under the cape."

"Under the cape."

"Under the cape," Dick confirmed, his face serious and unwavering. "It's a symbolic gesture of love and acceptance."

Wally snorted. "You people are weird."

"Yes. Exactly." Dick grinned. "We wear kevlar bodysuits and fight crime in arguably the most corrupt and vile city in the entire western hemisphere, without any weapons beyond what can fit in twelve four by three inch pouches. There is definitely something biologically wrong with us."

Wally chuckled. "So, we're cool?"

"Yeah, we're cool. Just promise you'll keep yelling at me when I need it. I get a big head sometimes."

"That is bullshit. You have the smallest ego of anyone I've ever met. It's actually kind of unhealthy."

Dick snorted. "No, it's not. I have the worst God complex of anyone I know."

Wally shook his head. "Whatever, man. I know I'm right."

Dick smiled and reached for the baby bottle again. "Whaddya say we try this again, kiddo," he said to Mary, guiding the bottle back into her mouth. Wally watched him count the seconds-one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine-before she rejected the bottle again. "That was better," he said approvingly, setting the bottle down again. "Thank you, that was really good."

"Can I ask you something? Probably really intrusive?"

Dick laughed. "Shoot."

"Why do you do this?"

Dick paused, lips pursing as he thought. "Mm. Well. I was...oh, I don't know, about...twelve, I guess. And I don't know, I guess I'd been really down for a while, kinda stressed out with the whole being Robin thing, and Alfred demanded I start volunteering somewhere. With homeless people, with veterans, with cancer patients, with puppies, something. And a friend of mine from school said she volunteered here, and if I wanted to tag along I could, and hey, it was something, Alfred would get off my back. So I tagged along, and miracle of miracles, babies don't remember a word you say. You can say anything you like, and as long as they're hearing a relatively calm human voice somewhere and there aren't any loud noises happening around and are being held and fed, they couldn't care less what's going on."

Dick chuckled, running his thumb over the top of Mary's head. "Batman would probably kill me if he knew the things i'd told these kids, but the CCTV doesn't have audio and none of these kids will remember a thing I say by the time I leave, so why not? Free therapy, without the record or the advice."

Wally glanced at the camera mounted in the corner. "Lip reading?"

Dick grinned and said something in what might have been Romani.

Wally rolled his eyes. "Right, I forgot. Original Robin."

"Son of an international business owner. He used to send me overseas as a liason."

Wally glanced around the room, taking in all the cribs lined up through the rooms. "They're all up for adoption?"

"Yeah. They have a better chance of being adopted than some of the older kids, though. Sad fact, adoptive parents don't want to deal with the emotional crap of adopting someone older." Dick stared absently at Mary's tiny face squinting up at him, his fingers still holding hers.

Wally watched him brood for a long, silent minute before asking, "You're wondering if Bruce hadn't been in the audience that night, if you would've made it."

"Not exactly an if, but a when," Dick sighed. "You know what happened."

"All three of 'em," Wally confirmed unhappily. He glanced at Dick suspiciously. "If you're thinking of trying again, I'd like to know now so I can tattle on you, asshat."

Dick laughed hollowly, a breathy, half-hearted chuckle. "You'll be the first person I call," he said, looking up at Wally through a fringe of dark hair. "Promise."

"Likewise, dude." Wally nodded to the downy head just visible above the knees of Dick's jeans. "She's pretty chill for a baby."

"It's the depression. She sleeps a lot, wakes up when I pick her up sometimes. Mostly she's just kind of a comatose lump." Dick leaned close to her and nuzzled her forehead with his nose. "But you're a cute comatose lump, aren't you, lovely? I think you are. Yep, definitely the cutest comatose lump I've ever seen. How do you pull it off?"

"Maybe it's Maybelline," Wally quipped. "Someday, you are going to make some lucky lady a very happy mama."

Dick snorted. "Um, no. Not in the cards."

"Fine, you're going to make some lucky dude a-"

"Hold it right there," Dick said, choking on a laugh. "Stop that, you're going to make me hurt her."

Wally grinned. "Well then lemme know when you're gonna bail, I wanna keep teasing you. Even if you are no longer shorter than me."

"Yeah, bummer for you," Dick snickered. "You will never be able to beat me in fair hand-to-hand combat ever again."

"Dude, like I ever could beat you."

"There was that one time-"

"You let me win, asshole."

"Right, yeah. Okay, you have never actually beaten me. I was trying to give you that one, but whatever."

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**So, Failure to Thrive is actually a real thing. It does happen in kids who are emotionally neglected, whether by parental negligence or foster system/orphanage understaffing, and it does resemble a deep depression exactly the way Dick describes it here. "Baby cuddlers" are an actual volunteer position at a lot of hospitals, especially in larger cities. **

**For those of you who might be wondering, yes, when Wally says "all three of 'em" and asks if Dick is planning on "trying", he is talking about suicide. That is a personal headcanon, and one I might consider exploring in fic if anyone's interested. **

**Thanks for reading, and go cuddle some babies sometime. It's remarkably therapeutic. **


End file.
